Seven Days Left
by k-kerning
Summary: What if Joshua had made a different decision? Warning: spoilers, kind-of-an AU.
1. Mission One - Seven Days Left

Megumi's long fight was over. Neku had survived in the UG for three weeks before facing Joshua in the final battle for Shibuya. Joshua's terms had been simple: the first person to shoot the other would decide the fate of the city and its people. Neku had lost.

Neku knew something had gone wrong when he woke on the pavement in Scramble Crossing. He wondered briefly whether Joshua's shot had missed, but shook the thought from his head: there was a dull ache in the center of his chest. He looked down. The purple stripe down the center of his shirt had been stained a dark red.

Panicking, he sat up and tore off the shirt, but his chest was smooth and unblemished. Neku lay back on the crosswalk, heart beating fast. Why was his wound healed? How long had he been asleep?—and why had he been moved from the Room of Reckoning? Joshua, it seemed, couldn't stand to let him die in peace.

Neku shoved his hand into his pocket. It emerged with a fistful of pins.

"Damnit," Neku muttered. He let the pins fall around him. "What a liar. I was supposed to be erased." He thought back to the end of the previous week.

(_"Oh, before I forget! I've collected your entry fee," Joshua says. "Now... Let the Game begin. 10... 9..."_)

"That's right... He didn't actually say what decision he'd come to," Neku mused. "So he must have..." God damn it. "He probably picked 'return to the RG' or something dumb like that as an entry fee." Neku stood up, brushing off the seat of his shorts, and pulled his shirt over his head. "That self-righteous idiot!" He bent to pick up his pins. As his hand closed around Pyrokinesis, a thought occurred to him. What had happened to Beat and Shiki?

Neku slipped the pin into his pocket and started toward the statue of Hachiko. He would start by checking the Room of Reckoning. If he couldn't find his friends, he would find Joshua. He didn't know what he would do afterward.

His phone went off. He pulled it out and flipped it open, almost surprised to see a mission. "Reach 104. No time limit. Fail, and face erasure. —The Reapers."

So Joshua _had_ entered him in a new Game. "How original," Neku muttered. He shoved the phone into his pocket, spitting curses into his collar, and walked right into a wall. "Ouch... Haven't done that since week one..." He laughed, reluctantly. "I guess I'm turning into Shiki." The thought of Shiki was sobering.

He looked around. No Support Reapers were in sight.

"Are you serious!? What the hell!" Neku was getting angrier by the second, and the upbeat, poppy music in his ears was doing nothing to help. He pulled his headphones down around his neck. "Where is everyone!?"

"Calm down, kid," someone said from behind him. "This is day one. The easy day. You're gonna pop a blood vessel or something."

Neku spun on his heels and sighted an orange-haired adult, unmistakably walking straight toward him. "It's you! Lollipop!" Frustrated as he was, he couldn't remember the Reaper's name, but he knew that he had fought both the Reaper and his partner during the third Game. "...Kariya!" he finally managed. Hadn't the Reaper been unconscious at the end of their last encounter?

"It's me, back from O-pin oblivion," Kariya said. He scuffed a heel on the pavement, regarding Neku impassively. "What's the problem?"

"What makes you think there's a problem?"

"You're yelling in the middle of the street, never mind the fact that no one can hear you," Kariya said. He shrugged. "Yelling won't fix anything. It's better to keep calm, you know?"

Neku crossed his arms over his chest, obscuring most of the blood stain. "What do you care?" He glared at Kariya suspiciously. "My Partner's just over there. And it's too early for you to attack Players directly. Don't think you can sic any Noise on us and win."

"What a bluff. There aren't any other Players in Scramble Crossing. It's just you 'n' me," Kariya said, and added, "I'm not going to sic anything on you." He stuck his lollipop into his mouth and glanced at Neku out of the corner of his eyes.

Neku wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Yeah, well," he said, "thanks. I guess."

There was silence as they avoided looking at each other. An elderly man shuffled in front of Neku. Neku sidestepped him impatiently.

"So. D'you want to make a pact or not?" Kariya asked.

Neku looked at him, startled but unwilling to show it.

Kariya was watching a pair of girls across the street. "That's how this Game works, innit? Players form pacts?"

"But you're a Reaper," Neku said.

"Pay attention! Don't you notice anything different?" Kariya turned his back on Neku. He glanced over his shoulder. "For a kid who's survived the UG this long, you're really kind of slow."

"Your wings..." Neku said slowly. He remembered noticing black wings on all of the Reapers he'd encountered, including Kariya. However, the skeletal jacket before him was unmodified. There was no hint that wings had ever sprouted through the fabric.

Kariya nodded. "Good job. I'm not even Support any more. They got tired of me, I guess."

Neku touched his Player Pin. Kariya was right; there were no other Players in the area, and he had few options to progress. Still... "I can't scan you," he said aloud.

Kariya scoffed. "'Course you can't. I'm a Player now. Got the pin and everything." He held out his hand. "Look, d'you want to make a Pact or not? We haven't got all day." Neku glanced pointedly at his blank palm. Kariya rolled his eyes. "Figure of speech, man. You in?"

Neku shrugged. "Fine. I accept." He grabbed Kariya's hand and they shook briefly.

"We should probably go over my fighting style before we meet any Noise," Kariya said. "I use energy. A negative psych. I can block close-range attacks; not so hot with the long-range stuff. Uzuki and I were able to use a light puck, and if you and I can buddy up for long enough, I might be able to figure out how to send one to you. Got it? Want me to go over it again?"

"Got it," Neku said. He bit back a sarcastic comment. Kariya was his best bet at surviving the week, and fighting would become easier they more they were in-sync. Unfortunately, syncing required friendliness.

"Great. 104's our destination, right? Is there a reason you were heading for Hachiko?"

"Actually... there was," Neku mumbled.

"What's that? Couldn't quite hear you."

"I was looking for some friends," Neku admitted.

"Well, they're obviously not in a blocked area. We'll be better off searching 104," Kariya said. Neku noted his use of "we": Kariya was definitely turning out to be a better Partner than Joshua.

"The last time I saw them was in the Room of Reckoning," Neku said, "but I don't know when that was." Honesty was probably his best bet at finding Beat and Shiki. "I'm not sure how long it's been since I was last awake."

Kariya nodded. "We're in the same boat, then. I haven't known what's going on since I was demoted. I can, however, help you get to Hachiko." He grinned, removed a keypin from his pocket, and waved it at Neku. "This wall's level two. Too easy, that is. Some grunt must have set it up."

"Wait!" Neku felt in his own pockets and took out a level four keypin. "Isn't this yours?"

"I got another," Kariya replied smoothly. "They forgot to take it away when they demoted me."

Neku shoved his hands into his pockets, ducked into his collar, and regarded Kariya from behind his bangs. "We still have to complete the mission," he said. "I don't want to be erased on the first day."

Kariya waved the comment away impatiently. "No timer." He cleared the wall. "...And now there's no reason not to go." He stuck his lollipop into his mouth and tossed the keypin up and down, weighing it. Neku shouldered past a group of schoolboys and headed toward Hachiko. As always, there were throngs of people aimlessly milling around, waiting to meet up with their different groups. Kariya hurried after him. "What's the rush? We have all day."

"The longer we wait, the harder it'll be to find them," Neku said. They passed Shibukyu Stationside and a flash of red hair caught Neku's eye. "Wait! Shiki!" He ducked into the store, but the hair was too bright, its owner too short.

"Sorry," Kariya said. He clapped Neku's shoulder; Neku grumbled and shook him off. "What do your friends look like, anyway? I've forgotten."

"Beat was wearing a white shirt and a black beanie," Neku said. "He's got blond hair. Shiki's got..." He trailed off. Crap. Come to think of it, Shiki had gotten over her jealousy during the first week. If Joshua had re-entered her into the Game, she would have a different entry fee. She probably wouldn't look like her friend—Eri? Eriko? Neku wasn't sure. He also wasn't sure what Shiki looked like. She had been vague about her real appearance, and he had never gotten a good look at the pictures on her phone. He remembered dark hair, and he was almost sure that she wore glasses. Beyond that, the only thing he had to go on was...

"Mr. Mew!" Neku blurted.

"'Shiki's got Mr. Mew'? What is that supposed to mean?" Kariya demanded.

"She has this stuffed animal. It's black. It looks like a pig. Or a cat," Neku said. "She takes it everywhere. And she's got dark hair." For good measure, he added, "...and probably glasses."

"Okay." Kariya shrugged. "We'll look for your beanie-wearing friend and the pig-toting one. You could try calling their names, too, you know? There aren't any other Players in this area, and you won't be heard in the RG. It's worth a shot."

Neku shrugged back. They walked the length of the bus terminal; Kariya took down another wall in front of Station Underpass. "How do you know your friends are playing, anyway?" he asked.

"I don't," Neku said. "I saw them at the end of my last Game. If I've been re-entered, it stands to reason that they have been, too."

Kariya thought for a second. "That's probably true," he agreed. "You said you were in the Room of Reckoning, right? That sounds like it's past Dead God's Pad? I've never heard of a Player getting through there before. One of the higher-ups must have seen something special in you."

Slowly, Neku said, "So you've never been to the Room of Reckoning."

Kariya shook his head. "Never had the pleasure."

"I thought all Reapers lived there or something."

"You don't go past Dead God's Pad if you're not an Officer." Kariya carefully avoided meeting Neku's gaze. "I never wanted anything to do with promotions," he said. "Apparently that's an unusual desire. Actually, for that reason, I almost met the Composer before I was demoted. The Conductor came to get me, said there was urgent business."

"What do you mean, you 'almost met the Composer'?" Neku asked. "I thought you and Joshua already knew each other."

Kariya threw him a sidelong glance and stopped walking. "Joshua," he said.

"Yeah. Doesn't he know all the Reapers?"

Kariya was silent for a moment. "Oh, sure, sure," he finally said. "You mean the Composer. No, he only speaks to the Conductor."

Neku ducked into his collar. During the second week, Joshua had erased a particularly powerful Taboo Noise, and Kariya had confronted them directly afterward, saying that Joshua was alive. Had Kariya not known he was the Conductor? Neku certainly hadn't. Perhaps Joshua had been hiding from his Reapers, too.

"He's probably just busy," Neku said aloud. Busy being an arrogant sadist, that was. His mind was hedging around another thought, but he couldn't verbalize it and decided to let it slide.

"Prob'ly," Kariya agreed. He stopped. "Trail of the Sinner," he announced. They were silent afterwards. Sho's trash piles had been removed, Neku noted, and he lingered when he noticed a small but new CAT mural on one wall. He sent glances back toward it as he moved away, and was so absorbed by this that he walked into Kariya. This was getting out of hand; there was no excuse to be as scatterbrained as Shiki. Neku was too observant for this kind of behaviour.

"It's a level five wall," Kariya said.

"So open it," Neku muttered, before realizing that Kariya only held a level four keypin.

"What a _pain_," Kariya said, ignoring him. He turned around. "Nothing for it: we'll have to go back."

Neku glanced around, not really expecting to see any Reapers waiting nearby. The sewer was empty. He started back toward Station Underpass.

The walls between the Trail of the Sinner and Scramble Crossing had been resurrected in their absence—were they being followed? and if so, by whom?—but Kariya opened them again with no trouble. They wandered back into the surge of humanity and stopped.

"I want to look by the store," Neku said abruptly. Shiki was a fashionista, after all. Shibu Department Store was a logical place to look for her.

"Sorry, no can do," Kariya muttered. He nodded at a red-hooded Reaper across the square. "We're being watched now, and there's a wall up. If he sees me using my keypin, we might have to worry about more than some small-fry Support."

"What, Noise?" Neku asked. He touched his pin. There weren't any Noise in the area—just a torrent of thoughts and ideas from the people around them. "I don't think he'll summon any. It's day one. The easy day. You said so yourself."

"I mean Harriers," Kariya said. "Or worse, Officers. I am so not up to dealing with them today."

Neku scowled. "Fine."

The Reaper had spotted them through the crowds. Neku couldn't see his eyes, but as they moved closer, he felt as though the Reaper was analysing him.

"Pact confirmed," the Reaper said. "Wall clear!"

Neku and Kariya walked past him. When Neku looked back, he had vanished.

"Looks like we're done with the mission," Kariya said. He strolled to the base of the 104 building and sat. "The end of the first day. You know, it's weird, being on the Players' side."

Neku scanned the crowds. "No other Players," he said.

"It's pretty late. They've all either finished the mission or let us finish for them," Kariya said. He laughed. "Wouldn't that be a riot. First day, too. We'll see them sooner or later."

Neku sat beside him and watched the crowd for a black beanie or dark hair. Kariya was silent: after a while, he lay back on the pavement and closed his eyes. Neku continued to watch and wait. He wasn't aware of losing consciousness.

* * *

**AN: **I think it's pretty obvious that I have no idea what I'm doing, but... hope my dumb prose didn't bore your socks off. (If it did, drop me a review or smth and I'll direct you to the nearest Target.)

Sorry for the lame-o title and summary, I'll come up with something better eventually. In the meantime, thanks for reading!


	2. Mission Two - Six Days Left

Neku woke, disorientated, in Cadoi City. Odd: in the previous Games, he had started almost every day in Scramble Crossing. "Probably 'cause I was Joshua's Proxy," he muttered, rubbing at one eye. "Must've been one of the perks or something." He sat up straight and saw Kariya sleeping a little way off. Neku checked his cell phone: there was no mission, but the clock read 10:45. He got to his feet, grumbling; his legs were stiff from being still for so long. He shuffled over to Kariya and yawned widely before nudging him in the side with a foot.

"Up."

Kariya didn't move. Neku supposed that the Reapers were able to impose some kind of unshakeable sleep on the Players at the end of each day: the theory explained why none of Neku's previous Partners had woken him in the mornings. He gave Kariya up as useless and sat back down, out of the way of the RG shoppers and commuters, to think about the situation. What if his friends were no longer Players? Had Joshua let them return to the RG, or had he erased them? Neku felt a cold weight settle into the vicinity of his small intestine. Fear—but what was he afraid of? Being alone, he decided. He had been alone before the Game, and the thought of losing the people who had taught him about friendship was terrifying.

_Stop thinking_, he ordered himself. _'What if' isn't going to help you survive the week._ In fact, thinking about his friends so much was proving to be an inconvenient distraction. He had been fidgeting with his headphones without noticing that he was doing so; now he saw that the cord was beginning to fall apart. Unsurprising, especially considering the number of nights he had slept with the headphones around his neck. He usually turned them off and removed them before going to bed in the RG. In fact, he was surprised that the battery hadn't drained from his mp3 player—he could understand his cellphone's staying charged, because receiving messages was an important part of the Game, but there was no reason for his mp3 player to keep working. Maybe all batteries had an indefinite life after their owner's death. The thought was ironic enough to merit a smirk.

"Someone's in a good mood this morning," Kariya observed. He was sitting up, looking at Neku. How long had he been awake? "Mission's here."

Startled, Neku checked his phone. The message tone had gone off while he had been thinking about Shiki and Beat. "Change Molco's polarity," it read. "You have 330 minutes. Fail, and face erasure. —The Reapers."

"The hell does that mean?" Neku asked.

Kariya shrugged. "Beats me. I don't know who the Game Master is, so I don't know what he wants."

"He or she," Neku said absently. He was studying the message.

"Meh. Details," Kariya said. "Most Reapers are male. Girls seem to prefer erasure for some reason."

"The alternative is winning the Game," someone said. Neku glanced up from his phone. It was the pink-haired Reaper whom Kariya had worked with during the previous Games.

"Uzuki," Kariya said. He didn't seem surprised to see her.

"If you win the Game, you can return to life, become a Reaper, or be erased," Uzuki told him. "Reincarnation or Reaperhood only sound like logical options if you've never had bad cramps." Kariya laughed. "Ugh! It's not funny!" Uzuki said. "I'm being serious!"

Neku decided that it was time to butt in before Kariya further provoked his former partner. "Are you this week's GM?" he asked.

Uzuki glared at him. "What an idiot. Only Officers are chosen for that role, and I still haven't been promoted." She turned back to Kariya. "How do you expect to get through the week with him?" she demanded. "You couldn't have picked a worse Partner. I need you to survive and lick boots to get your job back so I don't have to keep picking up all your slack!"

"Calm down," Kariya said mildly. "Did you want something in particular, or did you drop by just to nag at me? There must be something more productive to do."

Uzuki ground her teeth furiously. "Ugh! Shut _up_! I just wanted to remind you not to die before day seven! Besides, the GM's placed me on hold for today. I'm not some useless three-year-old kid, but it's not as if he cares!" She started to stomp off and turned back as if to add something else, but changed her mind again and stormed away.

"So how are we supposed to change Molco's polarity?" Kariya asked. He seemed to have already forgotten Uzuki's intrusion.

"I thought you might have an idea," Neku admitted.

"Nope. It's a little too vague for me. I prefer easy puzzles," Kariya said. He stretched out on the street. "Tell me if you come up with anything. If not, I'm sure someone else will solve it for us."

Neku glared at Kariya's prone form from the safety of his collar. It was true that only one pair of Players needed to complete the day's mission, but he hadn't actually seen any other Players yet. It would be just like Joshua to make Neku and his Partner play alone, as he had in the third week. Where was Joshua? Neku lowered his head farther into his collar, glowering darkly. It would also be like Joshua to anticipate Neku's desire for answers and hide himself in an inaccessible area of Shibuya.

However, these questions weren't solving any problems. Neku fully intended to carry out the mission, and Uzuki had taken away some of their precious time. Neku could see the timer counting down on Kariya's upturned palm: almost half an hour had passed, leaving them with five hours to complete the mission. There was probably some significance to the fact that they had woken in Cadoi City, he reasoned: it was right next to Molco. Polarity, though... hadn't he recently had a conversation about polarity? He thought for a second before the obvious answer occurred to him: Kariya had said something related the day before.

_("We should probably go over my fighting style before we meet any Noise," Kariya says. "I use energy. A negative psych.")_

Of course! Pins used to deal damage were associated with different psychs, which were in turn associated with affinities: positive, negative, or neutral. Neku was only concerned with the first two: positive and negative—opposing polarities, like the poles of a magnet. Tin Pin Slammer, as a plausible objective, was out of the question. Competitions were commonly held in Molco, and most useful pins had different affinities, but the game itself didn't directly affect the district. The only other connection that occurred to Neku was the favoured brand: trends in the area could be affected by fighting with different pin sets.

Neku's phone informed him that Natural Puppy was currently the most popular brand in Molco. He pulled a handful of Natural Puppy pins out of his pocket and turned them over. The vast majority of them were negative psychs. In fact, he couldn't find a single positive psych among them.

"Kariya," he said.

Kariya rolled over. "What? Did you figure it out?"

"We're supposed to fight Noise in Molco with a pin brand that only includes positive psychs. Or at least has the most positive psychs in its collection." The idea sounded implausible, but there was no better explanation.

"Okay," Kariya said. "So... what brand is that?"

Shit. Neku had no idea, and he hadn't collected enough pins to find out right away. "We'll have to do some research," he said. "We can exclude unbranded pins and Natural Puppy. We can probably exclude Gatito, too." Gatito was an exclusive brand with no official store and few offensive pins. The Game Master couldn't possibly expect Players to own enough Gatito pins to complete the mission. "I collected all of the Jupiter of the Monkey pins during the last Game, but we still have to look for stats from the pins I'm missing. There are ten brands."

"You're kidding," Kariya groaned. "This GM is legitimately evil."

"Sheep Heavenly, Tigre Punks, and D+B all have stores in Molco," Neku said, ignoring him, "which is probably why the mission is set there. Mus Rattus and Pavo Real pins are both sold here in Cadoi City. The rest of the brands are scattered all over the city. We'll have to hurry to find them all."

"I call talking to the shopkeepers," Kariya said promptly. "You can record whatever stats we're looking for."

"Fine," Neku agreed. He stood, and Kariya followed suit after a moment. "Let's start here and work our way back to Molco."

Pavo Real had no positive pins, and Mus Rattus only had one, so those brands were immediately ruled out. Hip Snake, Dragon Couture, and Pegaso were all likewise disqualified. Lapin Angelique had two positive pins, and Wild Boar had five.

Finally in Molco, Neku and Kariya checked the shops. Sheep Heavenly had two positive pins, Tigre Punks had six, and D+B had one. After the better part of three hours, Tigre Punks' pin collection was the only contender against...

"You have _got_ to be kidding," Kariya said. "Jupiter of the Monkey has eighteen frickin' positive pins, and we've had that brand all along. We didn't even buy anything new. Why didn't we just start with erasing the Noise?"

"Just shut up and get ready," Neku said irritably. "There are Noise possessing that girl over there. We'll start with them."

The pointless search for pins had put both Neku and Kariya in a bad mood, which did nothing to improve their sync rate. As a result, the light puck was difficult to use and often slow. On the bright side, Neku was used to using Jupiter of the Monkey pins in battle, and slashed at the Noise with a little more enthusiasm than strictly necessary.

Finally, the Noise had been eliminated from both planes, and Kariya joined Neku again. "So much for reduction one," he said. "Ready to clock out?" He grinned. "Just kidding. Where's the next batch?"

Neku was staring at the lack of numbers on his palm. "The timer's gone," he said.

"What? But Natural Puppy's still the most popular brand! Did we run out of time?"

Neku shook his head, staring at a couple near the phone booth down the street. The couple was staring back, and after a moment, the woman waved at him. "Thanks for taking out those last Noise," she called. "We thought we'd have to complete the mission alone."

Kariya strode toward them. "Wait a minute," he said. "We didn't change the district brand. What was the mission supposed to be?"

The man laughed. "Didn't you get it? 'Change the polarity.' There were Noise possessing almost every person in this area. It was quite a negative atmosphere." He waved a hand at the inhabitants of the RG. "Look at it now." Neku glanced around. Molco looked quite peaceful, far removed from its normally rushed and competitive atmosphere. That probably had more to do with the unusual lack of Tin Pin fans than the lack of Noise, but if the mission was complete, Neku wasn't going to complain.

Kariya was regarding Neku with a suspiciously disgruntled expression, so Neku changed the subject. "Good thing it's over. Hey, look, have you seen any Players besides us around?"

The man nodded. "Sure. We woke up in the park today. I think there were one or two others with us."

Neku wasn't sure whether or not he wanted a definitive answer, but the fear for Beat and Shiki hadn't entirely dissipated from his abdomen. "Did you ask... Were either of them named Beat or Shiki? They would probably be Partners." If they had been able to find each other before the Noise found them, he added silently. If they were in the UG at all.

"I don't recall, but those names don't sound familiar," the man said. The woman beside him was shaking her head. "One was a tall fellow—I think he was called Yoru; something like that. The other was a dark-haired young lady. I didn't catch her name."

Neku's heart lept. "Was she carrying a stuffed pig?" he asked. It was a cat, he reminded himself. She was always so upset when he called it a pig.

The man was regarding him with something like pity. He had probably jumped to the conclusion that Shiki was Neku's baby sister or something; not many older girls carried stuffed animals around in public. Neku shrank into his collar, disgusted with himself. Of course it wasn't Shiki. Joshua wouldn't have given Neku such easy access to his friends. If he was going to find Shiki and Beat, he would have to find them alone.

"I didn't see a pig on her, but I'll keep an eye out," the man promised. Neku nodded his thanks, but didn't wave as the couple walked away. It would do no good to rely on other Players. In fact, he knew from past experience that he might not see the couple again. Better to continue his search without their help.

Kariya was staring at him, too. "Look," he said, "if finding your friends is really so important, we can skip out on tomorrow's mission. We'll find Uzuki or something, ask her to look for them. Maybe the wall to the Dead God's Pad has been taken down. We'll take a look, all right?"

Neku almost laughed at the impossibility of the suggestion, but managed a strangled sort of noise instead. Ugh, how embarrassing. It was definitely for the best that he'd avoided friendships in the past. He quickly struck that thought from his mind. "Thanks," he muttered, and turned his music up before Kariya could suggest anything else. It was a while before he realized that he was crying.

* * *

**AN: **What a dumb mission! I certainly wouldn't have been able to figure it out. What did you think Neku and Kariya were supposed to do? Leave a review and let me know!


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